It is always nice to have some affirmation of what you do, but it is even better to have that affirmation as well as more training. A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be sent to San Francisco to be trained in the Responsive Classroom approach to classroom community. I follow their blog and newsletter because they are always full of ideas I find quite useful. There is also a host of ideas from teaches using this approach if you just Google the term. But to actually having the chance to be trained for an entire week was just fantastic, and it made me confront and evaluate some of my classroom practices honestly.
I always have a pretty close knit community in my classes where students, teachers, and parents could say what they felt, give constructive criticism, and most importantly feel a sense of belonging, significance, and fun. But after having been through the training I realized that our classroom community could be improved in several ways. Yes! It could be even better.
However, here I am going to focus on just one aspect... sharing. Is that a groan I hear from my fellow teachers out there? I am right there with you. Those endless bring-n-brag sessions, known as show-and-tell, about the newest toys were just torturous. I gave that up aeons ago to save everyone from the misery. Yet the Responsive Classroom version of sharing will be making its debut in my class come fall. Yes, really! With this approach, the purpose of sharing is so that each of us can get to know each other for who they are as a human being. This means that sharing comes with topics such as, my biggest fear is... the personality trait I most like about myself is... etc. I believe that structured in this way, sharing has the potential to become something wonderful that will make the classroom a more accepting and loving environment. Who woulda thunk it?
I always have a pretty close knit community in my classes where students, teachers, and parents could say what they felt, give constructive criticism, and most importantly feel a sense of belonging, significance, and fun. But after having been through the training I realized that our classroom community could be improved in several ways. Yes! It could be even better.
However, here I am going to focus on just one aspect... sharing. Is that a groan I hear from my fellow teachers out there? I am right there with you. Those endless bring-n-brag sessions, known as show-and-tell, about the newest toys were just torturous. I gave that up aeons ago to save everyone from the misery. Yet the Responsive Classroom version of sharing will be making its debut in my class come fall. Yes, really! With this approach, the purpose of sharing is so that each of us can get to know each other for who they are as a human being. This means that sharing comes with topics such as, my biggest fear is... the personality trait I most like about myself is... etc. I believe that structured in this way, sharing has the potential to become something wonderful that will make the classroom a more accepting and loving environment. Who woulda thunk it?
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